SEQUIM — Poet and memoirist Charlotte Gould Warren, whose new book is Jumna: An American Childhood in India, will give a reading during a free gathering Friday at Rainshadow Coffee Roasting Co., 157 W. Cedar St.
Writers on the Spit, the group hosting readings every fourth Friday of the month at Rainshadow, invites the public to the event at 6:30 p.m., though listeners may want to come early for coffee and conversation.
Warren, a longtime resident of Port Angeles, will share passages from Jumna as well as poems, possibly from her Washington Prize-winning book, Gandhi’s Lap.
Missionary’s daughter
The daughter of an American missionary father, Warren lived in India as a young girl, attended a boarding school in the Himalayas and traveling across the country by train when she was just 6.
She met Mahatma Gandhi in 1947, the year before he was assassinated.
Warren’s family moved to the United States when she was 11, living first in Alabama, then Pennsylvania.
After high school, Warren moved to Seattle, where an uncle lived. She was later accepted to Reed College in Portland, Ore.
After graduation, she worked at the Juvenile Home in Portland, took education classes at Portland State, met her husband, George, and in 1964 came with him to live in Port Angeles
She taught writing at Peninsula College and raised two sons here.
Then, 42 years after she left India, Warren returned to revisit her boarding school and her turbulent childhood.
She writes about it all in Jumna. The book, published by Stephen F. Austin University Press, is available for $18.95 at local bookstores.
As always with these fourth-Friday readings, writers are invited to share their work during the open-mic section.
For guidelines, email Rmarcus@olypen.com or phone 360-681-2205.